TR Week Twenty Four 2

The crash will be slow and prolonged rather than immediate. The contracts contain a 10 year 'poison pill' clause. Maybe all bidders, before they sign on the dotted line, should take time to consider just who is being given this poison pill. It's only the consequences for the probation service and future governments that's been pubically discussed. But what's the consequences for bidders if they find themselves unable to deliver on contract after say 3 years? It's not just a singular poison pill, Graylings got a bag full, and he's handing them out like Es at a rave. Tread careful.

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Just received an email in a Manchester office stating all NPS staff who have written more than 2 PSR's per month since Sept to be paid for overtime for the extra reports. Naturally I asked if CRC staff who have been writing reports up to 1/11/2014 would be treated the same, as usual no one knows. Is this happening in other areas.

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Ah well, my hours & hours of goodwill working are gone forever. NPS colleagues allegedly being rewarded with additional payments in one area for JUST DOING their job; yet 20+ years service with maybe 20 unpaid hours of weekly work means fuck all. The job was never about collecting cool points or being a jobsworth; peoples' lives had meaning. To spend time with someone grieving or needing to talk until 9pm was not unrealistic or weird. But in the new order, write more than 500 words and you've hit the jackpot!

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The CEO of North West made an interesting (by interesting I mean weird) speech at the opening of a new office this week. In front of several other partnership agencies she told both NPS and CRC staff that she doesn't want to hear about sniping between sides stating that she is hearing colleagues calling the NPS the dark side and CRC second class citizens. Very bizarre coming from someone who had never even been to the office and we don't have time to behave like petty children as we are all working our backsides off trying to make the TR shambles work!!! Other agencies were laughing at her (and us, who felt like naughty school children being chastised for something we hadn't done).

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I heard Michael Spurr interviewed on the Today Programme this morning regarding prison suicide rates increasing and was so shocked. He was lethargic and lacklustre and frankly not on top of his brief. Of course, they had asked Chris Grayling and he had declined! He is now spinning so fast he is surely going to unravel from the web of lies and disinformation he has engineered.

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Grayling the PR king - won't want to be heard defending prisons where prisoners are dying - so roll out the civil servant to take the hit. Of course Spurr has no choice but to defend the policy.

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The Case Allocation Tool is unworkable. Most areas now have a team of case allocators based in court teams (usually) who are being put under increasing pressure to complete the assessments as fully as possible without interviewing the offenders. 

Please remember how many cases are allocated without reports (both Crown and Magistrates) and the measurable target is for the case to be allocated within 24 hours. I have experienced 20 cases without reports to be allocated from a busy Crown Court in one day. We are now instructed to "interrogate" all sources of information when doing the CA tool, meaning OASys and electronic records (and you all know how difficult the IT systems are across the divide) but without any capacity to interview the offenders! 

It is an impossible task and it is more reliable to answer "insufficient information" or "don't know" because at least that is truthful! However we are now told this will fail the QA process if we do. Some colleagues are writing lengthy essays in the tool to try to justify their decisions.

Finally, we are now being asked to QA the tools completed by the report authors - in effect to confirm their assessment as to whether the case goes to CRC or NPS. My view is that this is a manager's role not a POs. I have sought union advice about this major change to my job description and received no answer.

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These assessments without seeing the offender are classic prison service management fudging. Pretending to do something is enough. The never got it and have no will to get it. Grayling, Spurr, Allars etc are all complicit in this charade. If you cannot see the point of doing the job, why PRETEND to do it? Because you KNOW it needs to be SEEN TO BE DONE. Why does it need to be seen to be done? Because there is an expectation that the task is undertaken. 

We are seeing the efficient production of an increasingly useless product and it will come back and bite them. Unlike the Prison suicides, riots and violence (the 'undeserving'), however, it will be innocent citizens who are the victims. Grayling will be long gone, of course. He is just an institutionalised vandal.

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Those of us that cannot afford to resign should not be made to feel like we have no morals. Also, do you think that they care?! There are plenty of people who are happy to take jobs for a lot less money. Remember what the average salary is in this country. Believe me there are those out there who would jump at the chance. I know that this comment will be greeted by shouts of qualification etc but so what at the end of the day? What qualification do you need to work in the CRC so choices are stark? Go look and see if you can find another job at an equitable salary.

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Wash your mouth out. We've been told that CRC's will ensure they only employ suitably trained staff. Are you suggesting for one moment that this is a lie?

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Suitable staff will be PI registered and that will be the only necessary test? Qualifications? People with more than English and Maths GCSEs will just be toooooooo expensive!

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Whatever the spin may be, CRC or NPS offenders are still going to leave prison with £46 in their pocket, a couple of standardised appointments where they're given a bit of paper and sent off to see someone else. That's not being critical of staff in anyway, it's just the way it will be. Grayling couldn't have made a bigger mess if he'd thrown a bag of sawdust into the wind. The sad thing is there isn't any winners. Staff, offenders, the companies getting contracts, victims or the taxpayer, everyone loses on this one.

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The only thing waiting for released prisoners will be tumbleweed!

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I would like to commit heresy & suggest that the u12 month work will, as with the Peterboro experience, only focus on those prepared to engage as required & therefore generate PBR. Pilots already in place are doing just that. How will CRCs work with those who are being released after several weeks inside & have no desire to engage with anyone but their mam, their dealer and that night's companion? They won't. Old Lag of the year would tell you that, except he/she is keeping shtum & pocketing £££'s from Grayling's mad experiment. They'll also get privileged access to areas and people otherwise 'out of bounds'. The shitstorm hasn't even begun.

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Work related stress absence through the roof in Northumbria. We have been advised to download an app to help.

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If that app can complete OASys and reports pass it on to me please!

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Hilarity in our open plan office today. Every ten minutes when things got stressful or frustrating someone shouted "Download the app!"

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I was there. It was as funny as it was sad that our once great trust has descended into this chaos. Still, we had some brief camaraderie and no recalls which is always good for a Friday. 

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I'm preparing for a job interview and am pretty sure there will be questions about managing change. So many of the change management theories out there suggest how important it is to motivate staff by staying focused on the reason for change, suggesting you repeat your 'reason for change' messages whenever you can to help staff understand and engage with each stage of the change process. Therein lies your difficulty Mr. Grayling, no-one in the probation service has any faith in your reason for change!

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Unsafe, ineffective & inhumane. These are evidently the three KPIs of Chrisis Grayling's Criminal Justice policies. And I don't doubt his chosen teams of bidders will happily join him in feasting on others' misery, distress and anguish so long as they can fill their pockets and pay off their shareholders. The CEOs and the Directors will furnish themselves with lavish bonuses & (if they don't already have them) collect gongs and titles in the so-called "Honours" lists.

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I've been watching the comments about safety in prisons with some interest, mainly because I do a lot of PSR's (well, FDR's) for those who get remanded. If I'm being honest with myself, there are times that during professional visits I have felt uneasy, both due to the behaviour of inmates who are waiting for their visits and the fact that more often than not there is only one female prison officer on duty during this time. 

Now we all know that prisoners behaviour can be unpredictable, especially if you are challenging them or unpicking their behaviour; many already have a story 'concocted' which they fell will mitigate or explain their behaviour and they can and do get aggressive when you 'disassemble' this in front of them. Reflecting on the past few weeks when I have been feeling this way, I'm fairly convinced that if one were to 'kick off', then I would likely suffer some quite serious injury before help came. What would be my position with regards to me declining to go into Prisons, quite simply because a) I really do not feel safe; b) I don't fancy getting assaulted.

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Just man up and tell them you're not going in! There's not a manager in the world who would direct you as if it all went shit shaped they would be the ones in the firing line. Mind, that may not replace your broken teeth/jaw/nose/slash marks but it would make for a higher compensation claim. Remember Vicarious Liability! You could get at least two REALLY good holidays out of the compensation you'd get.

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Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 places statutory duty of care on employers to provide safe working environment, and safe access and egress. Employees also have a duty of care to take reasonable steps to ensure their own safety. It seems this govt doesn't think fulfilment of these duties (amongst others) applies to them. I would suggest that declining to place yourself at a heightened risk of harm as a result of declining or absent health & safety measures in a particular environment could be considered a discharge of your own duty of care to self as required.

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Mae West 'always keep a diary and one day the diary will keep you' and she was right. Document everything that you see concerning whether or not it directly involves you as it gives the bigger picture. I recently did this against a bully of an SPO - and I came out looking better as I could prove contrasts of how she treated people differently. Also keep a note of who else was in the room at the time, so if the worst comes to the worst, you can ask them to be a witness.

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Exactly! Document everything - if it's not written down it didn't happen. That old mantra. Never more needed. I've witnessed blatant targeting and bullying of staff lately and my response is always the same: keep a diary! You are being called to meetings and in those meetings there are minutes of previous meetings that you've never even seen. 

I have to say though, the organisation I work for in the North are not in a defensible position at the moment. I know a number of cases that could clearly win a constructive dismissal claim if they so wished. Managers are so overstretched people haven't had supervision in a year and the stress questionnaires given to them by staff are being filed in the bin. Not good. Doesn't give you a leg to stand on when dismissing people!

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Has anyone else noticed the pigs ear NOMS are making with the new PQF learners? Four weeks in and some still with no contracts, some having to apply for salary advances as they're not being paid, some applying for advances and nothing turns up, some already thinking of packing it in.. Welcome to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Probation Cowboy Show. Yee-haw!

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The CEO in Manchester's CRC is ploughing on with her service delivery model regardless. After months of change, yet more change is being pushed on to staff when she's hasn't even worked out what "Purple Futures" wants yet. Why on earth would you do that? Take note - your mutual bid didn't win! Stop pushing it through the process as you'll likely get kyboshed by the money-saving grapplers in Interserve and Shelter. No regard for staff whatsoever.

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DTV are also making changes to reflect the new TOM, despite no contracts being signed AND an apparent Ethical Wall. Me thinks that this wall has been compromised!

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Sounds like the CEO Manchester is making a desperate attempt to cover up aspects of their own delivery model (had it been successful). Might also be an attempt to keep the workers busy with change to reduce any backlash.

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It's not just the CEO that needs to be got rid. There are too many keen & eager middle managers (freshly appointed) wanting to impress who are just as corrupt and useless. All in it for the money & profit.

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Mangers duty of care to their staff in Manchester has been appalling, no wonder half the service is off sick and the other half is propped up by agency staff. Still they keep bleating on about things are going well, they are maybe in some parallel universe, but not in Manchester.

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Not just Manchester. West Yorks as well. Useless CEO's and managers in general. Still want the penny and the bun. Good thing is we are fighting back at their complete cowardly display and incompetence. They don't manage, they are in charge. That is the problem!!!

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The end of our Senior Managers? I sense desperation amongst our leaders. This is borne of the dawning realisation that their grip on power is slipping and, totally unused to having their power challenged, they are pushing on relentlessly with their plans to play "Big Business Leader". Well be careful what you wish for because in the world of the multi nationals they are minnows and will be swallowed up without mercy. Neither can they fall back on the default position of being "The Keepers of the Probation Heritage" for each and every practitioner knows that it was the Senior Managers that sold us out and then failed to speak out.

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There are two senior managers who have acquitted themselves well during this period - the two who transferred from LPT to Serco with CP and now run that contract. Two very genuine people and whilst I'm sure they are under lots of pressure they make sure people know it's about the service users and community not targets or money.

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It’s important to realise that just because someone holds a position of leadership, doesn’t necessarily mean they should. Put another way, not all leaders are created equal. The problem many organisations are suffering from is a recognition problem – they can’t seem to recognise good leaders from bad ones. Anyone thinking of NOMS perhaps?

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Having transferred from the private sector to retrain as a PSO, I have never encountered more shallow self seeking clueless, self absorbed plantpot seniors as I have in the probation service. So called values of the service mean nothing to them largely. They are mainly sociopathic bullying shits who were once very poor probation officers who went into management because they were crap at their job and now it is payback time!

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I agree. They employ like for like facsimiles of each other. Stepford style. Then they move to NOMs and fuck the service up even more. Need to go back to the days when you would be promoted for merit, not an hours assessment by a faceless overpaid HR guru!

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So the MOJ/Government is to provide protection for prison officers against violence by prisoners by ensuring every perpetrator is prosecuted. With assaults on staff having increased by 12% due largely to reduced staffing, the solution will be to introduce a PROTOCOL. That'll work then. Oh and any sentence handed down will be served at the end of the existing prison term to act as a deterrent. That'll work then. Oh and staff may be issued with body cameras to keep them safe rather than replacing the prison staff Grayling has already cut. So that'll work then. And guess what? Grayling is trotting out Selous to front this announcement, just in case...

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So, 14,000 bodicams @ £300 is in excess of £4M. Still, its only a fraction of the £35M paid out in redundancy to prison staff this year so in the hands of Selous & Grayling can only be seen as a saving in times of austerity. Well done, MoJ. Another triumph of stupidity over reality.